Blog encouter 3

After hearing that this blog art enouter was sapose to be based on sound. I got excited, I looked up almost every artist that was posted on d2l by Carl and i was tempted to find the best one. Sadly though they were all good and only one reall really moved me which made it hard to deside just what i wanted to do. So i did some thinking and one video that struck me was Christian Marclay's short film called telephones. I watch the film quite a few times jotting down notes each time trying to get the full impact of the film. In the short film a series of phones ring, each clip was from a different seen from a different movie. each ring tone had a different pitch so as the you are hearing all the phones going off, it comes across as music. Sure not te kind of music you'd liste to on the radio but,each tone and pitch together create and make music in a artistic way. Another thing that Christian does in his film is he also uses some exserts of people talking, so you hear the hello, hello, all in different ways. So not only do you have the ringing creating music but, you also have peoples different voices, and different ways of saying it adding to the music idea as well. Now although every person in this film was doing a different action in every clip that was played were the phone started ringing. It still added a type of repetative motion to the picture. When everyone is answering, heading to the phone, or perhaps just picking it up and saying hello. you still get that sense of repition in the film. Sound plays a huge and crutial role in this peice simply because it is the base line and the premise of the whole film. Sure maybe to some it is just annoying, and maybe not artistic to others. But, the sound is important because that is how the director/ artist is communicating and getting his point across. He took movie clips and only inserted the phone ringing, people going to answer, and then saying hello. You can really take this in a lot of ways really, you could view it as Christan really just wanting to show that the phone in some ways interrupt our everyday lives and interferres with our activity, or perhaps how everyone does the same thing over and over again.
There was another film in our class that we watched towards the beginning of the semester called What the Water Said. When i first watched this film i was bored and i hated it. All it was, was a bunch of scratches creating this horrid sound. However, the more and more i thought about it, yeah i still hated it but, this guy put the film strip in the ocean ,and let the ocean scratch the film. So when he later put it through a projector all of the scratches would turn into audio, giving it the sounds that the ocean made. What reminded me of this film when i was talking about the telephone film that Christan made was that the sound in both were equally important and the film would loose meaning if it wasn't there. If What the Water Said didn't have sound you would be left with a film strip with scratches and nothing else. Now if you took the audio away from the film telephones all you would have is clips of people answering the phone.
There is one last film i would like to bring up from class that i think would fit in this catergory is The To Kill A Mockingbird short film were the artist remixed a scene and used the sound and motion to convey the vonerbility of the characters in the scene. This film to was i little harder to watch, not going to lie, The only thing that i really didn't care for is the length of time that the artist desided to laps. Some of them could have been a little shorter and still prove his point just as well. The audio in this film is also very crutial to the film message. Although you have alot of skipping going on the audio if really the only thing that you can really focus on. It grabs your attention and is the loudest action being done. If you didn't use the audio for this piece you would only have a scene skipping and the images would be scattered. The one thing different from this film, telephones, and What the water said is that Telephone and to kill a mockingbird have something visual to go with the sound. But taking a look at all three of these pieces i realize just how important it is to have good audio in your film because it is amazing how much it could impact the whole meaning behind it. It could be something as simple a one word or even a scratch. Or as complicated at multi-toned sounds repeating over and over. either way no matter what the case is audio can be just as if not more important then the visual effacts going on. I do recommend if you have not seen any of these films that you should. That way you can hear it for your self and see what i mean. Or you could do an even simpliar experiment. The next time you are watch a movie of your favorite show turn off the volume for a minute. Ask yourself is the show just as good only being visual. Although this is just a simple exercise you can get an idea of what i mean. Audio is very important to film, that's why you have to make sure it is just right. Next time you watch a movie listen to the sound track and the music with the video and see if it adds to your mood when watching it. Then rewind it and watch it with the sound off, then you can ask yourself is the music in the background important to the impact of whats going on and your viewing involovment? You would be surprise just how much it helps out.

I had alot of fun with this assignment and i hope those of you who are reading this will take the time, whether it's two minutes or two hours try and see what the sound can do for a video, show, or film and see for yourself.

Journal entry 3

For my third and final journal entry i desided to expand out of my comfort zone, i wanted to take it to the next step and read something i maybe wouldn't before. So while i was reading through all of the articles in this months issue of Afterall Magazine. I happen to come across the perfect one. The article was called documenta 12, written by Lisette Lagnano.The article was onthe artist Roger M . Buergel, who has returned to the Kessel bomb ( used in world war 2) left in ruins and filled with devastation. He started an exhibiton and had alot of sucess with his findings. It took him a while to finally be happy with his work and the final product, but he came up with a picture book and a cataloge of his findings while there. In the paper they qoute Roger saying "words obstruct the visibility of the art." I found this statement very interesting and got me thinking alot. As an art it is open ended, anything can be done and there is no right way to express yourself. So in other words the world is your canvis.
If i had deside what kind of artist Roger is i would most definetly have to say that he would have to be contemporary by far. He is taking this bad time in history were many died or had lost loved ones and making it art. So in a way i feel like this is real life art, taking as it hapened. Who would think that i bomb that dropped and devistated millions would later turn out to be art on display all over the world. To me just the thought of taking something bad and turing it into good is great. World war 2 was a big part of our past, and in a way it's like were not forgetting about it. It's still in our minds and we won't forget what happened. In some ways i feel as if world war 2 brought us all together in a way, sort of like the world trade centers on september 11th. But at the same time you really don't see a whole lot of artist trying to make September 11th into art quite yet. I don't think enough time has gone past for people to be ready for art dealing with that. So i think Roger picked a great time and subject for this art piece.
After reading this article i did alot of thinking on how important our history is to us. For the fact that the art world met the history world i think it's great. You could read a ton of World War 2 books. But, seeing one picture graphic or not seeing the devastation will speak to you alot more. I agree with roger some what on what he said earlier in the paper on words in art, but i also disagree a little bit to. I think it really depends on the type of art the artist is making. To me Visual art always speaks to me more then a paper would. At the same time thought i don't mind a little bit text to add to the compostion. With Roger world war 2 bomb art work, i feel that the piece doesn't need any text and that the images are strong enough to speak from themselves as they are.
I really enjoyed this article, having art and history together was a great idea and it has a very powerful meaning behind it that more and more i look at the piece posted in google. Taking something tragic and turning it into art is great, not everyone could probably get away with this either. It takes a great deal of strength anf vision on his part toget it just right. So people if your not careful might find it offensive, graphic, or depressing. So you have to have just the right amount to create art. If you find yourself with some free time and can spare a few minutes of your time, i highly recommend reading this months issue of after all magazine. They had alot of great stories this month and i had a hard time desiding what i wanted to choose.